The Sunday Haul (on 25-09-2016)

In the dismal, rain-soaked week that passed by in Hyderabad there was only one ray of sunshine-it did not rain on Sunday. Though the skies were overcast all day giving the impression that it might rain at any moment not a drop fell from morning till night. I had thought that the Sunday at Abids would be a wash out since it had rained quite heavily on Saturday in the evening and continued into the night. Luckily for me the rains took a break last Sunday.

The Sunday before last I had missed buying a couple of good titles I had seen at Chikkadpally. So last Sunday I decided to stop at Chikkadpally first before going to Abids. Luckily, the titles I wanted to pick up were still with the seller. I picked up ‘Inner Spaces- New Writing by Women Writers from Kerala’ that was published in 1993. It was in a good condition with a bright yellow cover that was very attractive. It has fifteen stories by the following writers: Lalitambika Antharjanam (The Admission of Guilt), Sarah Thomas (When Dreams Turn Live), Shobha Warrier (Granny), B. Saraswathy (The Fisherman), K. Saraswathi Amma (The Soil that Grows Diamonds), K.B. Sreedevi (The Stone Woman), M.D. Retnamma (The Cow), Rajalekshmy (In the Temple), Ashita (Incomplete Stops), Kamala Das (The Game of Chess), P. Vatsala (Chamundi’s Pit), P.R. Shyamala (The Guest Who Came in a Palanquin), Nalini Bakel (The Third Night), Manasi (The Sword of the Princess), Sarah Joseph (The Symphony of the Forest).

The other title was ‘The Lunar Visitations’ by Sudeep Sen which was a title I had read about a long time back. It is divided into six sections: Prologue (Eclipse), The Ceremony, The Lovers and the Moon, Nightscape in a Moonlit City, and Epilogue (The Triads) that have a total of thirty one poems. I was glad I had the sense to buy this title the second time I saw it. I got both these books for fifty rupees. But I couldn’t locate the third title which was another collection of poetry by Sujata Bhatt. The seller said he had it somewhere but wasn’t sure where. He looked for a long time but couldn’t locate it. He promised to find it and keep it aside for me to pick up on the way back. Ultimately he couldn’t find it when I returned from Abids.

At Abids I found three more books in addition to the two books I had picked up at Chikkadpally. Last Sunday too I was alone on the hunt for books as my friends did not turn up.

One author I had discovered quite by accident was Charles McCarry. This was in 2014 when I found three books by him within a span of a couple of months. Sometime in January, 2014 I came across ‘The Tears of Autumn’ that I picked up on a hunch. After reading it I wanted to find more books by McCarry. Luckily in April the same year I found ‘The Better Angels’ and two months later, in June, I found ‘The Miernik Dossier’ that I finished reading only recently. ‘The Tears of Autumn’ was one of the best books I read in 2014 and since then I’ve had an eye out for titles by Charles McCarry. So when I spotted ‘Second Sight’ at the bottom of a vertical stack of books I had it taken out. I got it for just thirty rupees.

I had heard of ‘The Treasure of Sierra Madre’ but wasn’t able to remember the author’s name. When I spotted ‘The Bridge in the Jungle’ and picked it up to have a closer look because it was a Penguin title, something which I don’t pass over, I read it was a book by B. Traven, author of ‘The Treasure of Sierra Madre.’ What made me decide on buying this title, apart from it being a Penguin title, was what V.S. Pritchett wrote about this title on the back of the book. It said, “This is one of Traven’s quiet, profoundly intuitive and very frightening Mexican stories, in which a single incident… is expanded until it precipitates an indescribable atmosphere of primitive mystery, alarm and suspense.’

My collection of cookbooks is slowly expanding and is now big enough to fill a bookshelf. Though it is a modest collection it did not have a single title by one of the most popular names- Madhur Jaffrey. Last Sunday at last I found a Madhur Jaffrey title- ‘Madhur Jaffrey’s Cookbook: Food for Family and Friends.’ Though it was published in 1989 it was in a very good condition. I got it for just fifty rupees that I paid to the seller as soon as he quoted the price. I was glad that last Sunday’s haul of five books included two volumes of poetry, a fiction title, a collection of stories, and a cookbook.